


Me Ke Aloha

by stephmcx



Series: Montana verse [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Secrets, Feelings Realization, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Implied John McGarrett/Joe White, Joe White - Freeform, Love Confessions, M/M, Parallels, Pining, Secret Relationship, Secret love, john mcgarrett - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephmcx/pseuds/stephmcx
Summary: They’d flown into Missoula yesterday and then spent all morning today at the law office, dealing with the legal necessities of the inheritance. Once Steve had learned about Joe’s will, that he had made sure Steve got the ranch, Steve had known that he had to come back here—for whatever it is that comes with it. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something left for him to uncover.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Montana verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1377583
Comments: 28
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this story on and off for almost two years, so it's been in the works for a while and I'm happy and excited it's finished now and I can share it.
> 
> References to episodes 9x10, 9x11 and 9x12. This is part of my Montana verse series, but it can be read separately.
> 
> Huge thanks go to my wonderful friend [cowandcalf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CowandCalf/pseuds/CowandCalf) for her support and cheerleading and her amazing feedback!! You rock, babe!
> 
> Picture of Steve in the moodboard below edited by [@h50europe](https://h50europe.tumblr.com/) and used with their kind permission.

* * *

Steve is driving, heading south on Highway 93 right through the center of Bitterroot Valley, and it’s like the worst kind of déjà-vu. It’s barely three months since he’d been here and he had never imagined to find himself back in Montana so soon—if ever again.

It’s late morning, almost noon, and the weather is gloomy, looking like a snow storm is about to hit soon. All around them the Rocky Mountains are looming, covered in snow and ice, the mountain tops shrouded in fog and low hanging clouds. It feels stifling. Steve has a hard time shaking off the feeling of running into a trap. 

Nothing bad is going to happen this time around, he knows that. But the memories of what had happened the last time he’d driven down this very road, of what had been waiting for them at the ranch—

Losing Joe—

Steve tightens his grip on the wheel and clenches his jaw. It’s been three months. Three months, and he’s still not over it, not that he would admit it out loud. But he’s still trying to deal with the fallout, still trying to get a handle on the betrayal and the hurt and the guilt those few days had caused; on what they had _cost_ him. 

Next to him Danny shifts in the passenger seat and for a moment the spiral of dark thoughts that keeps spinning in his mind gets interrupted. Steve can almost feel Danny’s gaze on him, he knows Danny is observing him closely, that he will analyze every move he makes while they are here and he makes a conscious effort to release the death grip he keeps on the wheel. He’s beyond glad Danny is here with him, that he is not facing this alone.

Going back to Joe’s ranch won’t be easy, he knows that. It will be full of unpleasant and painful memories. But he’s determined to sort this out, to get done what needs to be done, to honor Joe’s legacy. Steve chances a look at Danny and their eyes meet for a brief moment, a quiet understanding passing between them.

These past weeks, Steve’s unplanned stay in Montana and the trip to Laos and then Grace’s accident, they haven’t been easy for Danny either, Steve knows that. And despite that, Danny hadn’t hesitated one second before offering to come here with Steve.

“If you’re going, I’m going,” Danny had said, after he had made it unmistakably clear how much he opposed the idea of Steve going back to Montana in the first place, even if it was only for a day or two. Steve had found it hard to breathe for a moment, processing Danny’s words, had found himself saying “I would like that,” eventually, and Danny had squeezed his hand in response. 

While he knows that Danny would follow him everywhere, had already done so, to hell and back, more times than Steve is willing to count, he’ll never take it for granted. Danny, their friendship, it means so fucking much to him. And at the same time, he’s acutely aware that his feelings for Danny run way deeper than they probably should. He has tried hard to ignore them for the better part of nine years, sometimes more, sometimes less successful and it has become increasingly more difficult over time.

—

Steve pulls the rental car up to the ranch and the peaceful snow-covered land in front of his eyes won’t match with the images of fire and blood and death his memory provides. It’s hard to imagine that there are still charred, black marks on the ground below the snow, from where the cars have burned out. 

He cuts the engine and takes a deep breath, and there’s a soft touch on his shoulder, reminding him that this time, it’s different.

“C’mon, let’s get this over with,” Danny says, opening the door and he’s right. They’re here to wrap things up. Literally.

When they had left Montana for Laos, seeking revenge—and finding that it hadn’t helped one bit in easing the pain—they had packed and cleaned up in a hurry and without much care. Steve hadn’t given much thought to the ranch afterwards or what would happen to it until the call from Joe’s lawyer had taken him completely by surprise.

They’d flown into Missoula yesterday and then spent all morning today at the law office, talking to the solicitor and dealing with the legal necessities of the inheritance. Once Steve had learned about Joe’s will, that he had made sure Steve got the ranch, Steve had known that he had to come back here—for whatever it is that comes with it. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something left for him to uncover.

The air is cold and clammy and their feet sink into several inches of snow when they get out of the car. Steve takes a few steps but then stops to take a look around, because this land? It belongs to him now. Along with the cabin and the empty stables and the abandoned paddock—and also that godforsaken pine tree that Joe had loved so much. That he had loved so much that he chose to die underneath it. 

“Hey,” Danny yells, startling Steve out of his thoughts. When he looks up, he finds that Danny is already halfway to the cabin, waiting for him. “You all right?” he asks when Steve catches up. 

Steve shrugs, he’s not so sure. He wants to be grateful, he really does. It means the world to him that Joe had thought of him. Had thought so highly of him to make a will and leave him the ranch, the land, his belongings, everything. 

“I still can’t believe Joe left me all this,” Steve admits, waving his hand across the land around them. His voice sounds hoarse, even to his own ears and he clears his throat. “This land should have gone to his family, to his sister.” He thinks of Joe’s ex-wives, but dismisses the thought quickly. He knows none of these marriages had ended on friendly terms.

They start walking again, the snow crunches below their feet with every step, and Steve shoves his hands into his jacket pockets against the cold. It’s Joe’s jacket, the one he kept for ridiculous sentimental reasons. But it’s also the only jacket he owns that is suited for this kind of weather and wearing it feels strangely comforting.

“You said Joe was like a father for you. Have you—” Danny says and turns towards Steve, pausing briefly, like he’s choosing his next words carefully. “Have you ever considered that he might have thought of you as a son? That _you_ were his family?” Danny’s voice is untypically soft, and something stirs inside Steve’s chest. 

He knows that Danny and Joe hadn’t always seen eye to eye, that Danny had questioned Steve’s trust in Joe more than once. But these words tell him how much Danny must have thought about Joe and him, about this whole situation. Hearing Danny say this out loud, having drawn the same conclusion Steve has, it does some funny things with his heart. 

Over the years, Steve had become gradually aware of Joe’s impact on his life. Of how many roles Joe had fulfilled for him. Joe had been his uncle first, his parents’ best friend. Then he had become his instructor and mentor and CO while a friendship of their own had blossomed and grown. But all the time and most importantly, Joe had been a father to him whenever John hadn’t been able to be one. And only recently had Steve thought about what that might have meant to Joe, conversely. 

Steve remembers sitting at Grace’s bedside at the hospital, after her accident, pondering his role in her life and comparing it to how Joe had kept watch over him, all these years. He’d come to the startling realization that _he_ is the exact same person for Grace and Charlie that Joe had been for him and Mary. He found that he wanted to _be_ that person, too, that he feels responsible for Grace and Charlie in a way—probably not like a parent, but not far from it either. And by now he’s reasonably sure that’s how Joe must have felt about him.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, “the thought has crossed my mind.” 

It’s a massive understatement, he’s spent long sleepless nights thinking about all this. About Joe and him, about his parents, about their motivations and why Joe did what he did—

Danny stops and Steve looks up, realizing that they’re standing right in front of the cabin now. Danny shoots him an expectant look, like he’s waiting for Steve to say something more. Steve wonders if Danny figured out this second part, too, about the parallels and Steve’s role in his children’s life. And it’s tempting, to point it out to Danny, to let him know how much he cares and that he will always look out for them, but there’s a huge lump that has formed in his throat and he can’t go there right now, not yet. 

He looks away from Danny and instead, he gives the cabin a look-over. It’s still riddled with bullet holes, of course, and plastered with the improvised fixes Steve had put in place crudely where the grenades and booby traps had torn holes into the walls. Despite the onset of winter everything seems to have held well enough Steve notices, not without a hint of satisfaction. Apart from the snow everything is exactly the way they had left it two months ago, and suddenly he’s got a clear picture in his mind of the mess that is awaiting them inside the house.

—

“Tell me again what we are looking for?” Danny asks, as he closes the door behind them and then braces one hand on the door jamb, while he starts unlacing his boots with the other.

“I don’t know, man,” Steve says with a little shake of his head. He bends down to take off his own boots, following Danny’s example so they don’t spread the snow and slush inside the cabin.

They’ve been over this before and it’s just a hunch, just instinct, that Joe might have left something here for Steve to find. It might be nothing much. Some sort of evidence, probably, that Joe might have kept as an insurance. Files containing classified information that should stay hidden and not fall into the wrong hands. That probably shouldn’t have fallen into Joe’s hands in the first place. Steve doesn’t dare think about it being something more personal, some new puzzle piece in the patchy picture he has of his parents—Joe had always been sparse in handing them out.

“I know it when I find it,” he says and walks a few steps into the room. The wooden floorboards are uncomfortably cold, as is the rest of the cabin and Steve considers getting a fire going in the oven for warmth, but they’re not planning on staying long.

“Where d’you want to start searching, then?” Danny asks, standing next to him. 

Steve takes a look around the cabin. Everything is exactly the way they had left it two months ago, not that he had expected anything to be different. Only a tiny, illusional part of his mind had been wishfully thinking that everything would look as nice and tidy as when he had first arrived here with Joe. 

Not much is in its original place. Steve remembers how they had moved furniture around as they had prepared their defenses. Afterwards, when it all was over, when Joe and Cole were dead and Steve was left to pick up the pieces, he hadn’t put any effort into re-decorating. He’d tidied up, but he hadn’t paid much attention to what he was doing. The hurt was too fresh, too raw, and his mind had been focussed on his mission, on finding and eliminating the one responsible.

Steve knows that there aren’t many personal things to be found. Joe had quite a lot of books stacked on the shelf in the living room. Some magazines, a few pieces of Navy paraphernalia, souvenirs Joe had brought back from his tours. Two colorful vases on the bookshelf that may or may not originate in Nairobi, and that surprisingly hadn’t caught a single bullet in the attack.

It’s not much, compared to all the _stuff_ his Dad had left behind, much of which is still cluttered everywhere around the house. Steve can’t help but think that Joe and his Dad had been quite the opposites in many ways—not unlike Danny and himself.

So whatever it is that is to be found, it must be hidden somewhere in the cabin. 

“Let’s start with the armory,” Steve says. It should be the easiest part.

—

Easy it might be, but taking stock of the armory and what is left in there does keep them occupied for a while. If Danny has an opinion on the still impressive amount of firepower, he keeps it to himself. Until Steve suggests to move the whole arsenal to Hawaii and into Five-0’s possession, that is.

“If this is the reason you wanted to come back here,” Danny says, “I’m very tempted to take one of these admittedly outstanding Navy issue guns of very dubious origin and _shoot you in the foot with it_!” 

Ah, there’s the sarcasm Steve had been waiting for. A relieved grin flickers across his face, he hates it when Danny thinks he needs to hold back for his sake. Not that it happens very often. But there’s also a fond look in Danny’s eyes and and a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and Steve knows he doesn’t really object.

“Look, there must have been a reason Joe gave me the ranch,” Steve tries to argue for appearance’s sake. Because it’s what they do. It’s nice and normal. “But no, it’s not what we came here for,” he concedes.

“Whatever,” Danny says. “You know what. I need something more pleasant and peaceful after this, I’ll go check if Joe has hidden any big secrets in his kitchen cabinets.”

Danny leaves in the direction of the kitchen area and Steve follows him into the hallway. The linen cabinet catches his eye and he stops to check it for possible hiding places. He knocks on the side walls and pulls out the towels to prod at the back, all the while trying hard to ignore the burn marks on the wooden frame that the grenade had left when it went off—and the memory of Cole smiling up at him when they had put the booby trap in place. 

Steve doesn’t find anything though and shoves the towels back onto their shelf, annoyed with himself for letting himself get distracted so easily. He should be able to push the memories out of his mind, he should be able to focus, to compartmentalize. This is what can jeopardize a whole mission.

Next to the linen cabinet is the bedroom door and Steve steps inside and takes a look around. He still doesn’t know what exactly he’s looking for, but he _knows_ Joe. 

No. 

He _knew_ Joe. Fuck. He bites his lip, Joe is gone and it still hasn’t fully sunk in. 

There’s a dresser right beside the door and Steve hesitates. It feels odd to just sort through Joe’s stuff like that, like he’d done it countless times on the job. Here, it feels too personal, like he doesn’t have any business sniffing around. Except he does. Because Joe must have known that Steve would do exactly this. With giving him the ranch, Joe also gave his consent for Steve to find and see whatever he kept here.

Steve opens the top left drawer of the dresser and there are three framed photographs on top of several pairs of socks. He vaguely remembers Joe putting the picture frames in there when they had boarded up the windows and put one of the MGs in position here. He pulls the pictures out and takes a closer look—surprised, that he actually recognizes two of the photos, that he even knows them well. 

The first one shows himself as a newborn baby in his father’s arms, with his Mom casting an affectionate look at him over his father’s shoulder. The same picture had been hung on the wall in his parents’ bedroom when he was a kid, right next to a picture of him and baby Mary. Steve can’t help but smile at the sentiment that Joe kept this picture all these years. 

The second photo is a black and white shot, it seems ancient. It shows Joe and his Dad in BDU’s; they’re young, they must have just joined the Navy back then. Steve is pretty sure that the exact same picture had been among the pictures his Dad had kept on the wall in his study for years.

The third one is a photo of Joe and his sister and it seems to have been taken more recently. Probably even after Joe had been rescued from Nigeria, Steve can’t say for sure.

It’s an odd choice of pictures to keep on the dresser in your bedroom, Steve thinks. But after a moment’s consideration it’s not, not really. 

Because he has pictures of himself and Mary and Joanie on his wall, right next to pictures of Danny and Grace and Charlie. And there’s one photo of just Danny and him very prominently pinned to his fridge—which was Grace’s doing, but it’s not like Steve had removed it. 

He shakes his head a little, grinning to himself. He can’t believe all the parallels that he keeps discovering, it’s downright scary. 

Steve puts the picture frames back on top of the dresser where they must have been originally. Then he takes a look through the rest of the drawers, but he finds nothing but clothes in them.

He shoves the bottom drawer shut, mildly frustrated, but then it clicks—

If Joe and him had been alike the way he thinks, then he needs a different approach—and, damn, he should have thought of it earlier. 

Steve stands and turns around, leaning against the dresser. He lets his eyes wander across the room, thinking, and starts composing a mental list of spots _he_ would pick out as a hiding place inside the cabin.

—

It’s the first place of his list that he checks, back in the armory, where Steve finds a loose floorboard just next to the storage rack and he is very pleased with his reasoning. When he lifts the loose board, he finds a lockbox sitting underneath. He would bet money that Joe had kept a go-bag sitting on top of it, just as much to cover the hiding place as a means for the quickest way to grab everything and escape.

He pulls the box out of its hiding hole and puts it on the work bench, but when he checks the lid he finds it is actually locked. Steve doesn’t bother looking for a key, he knows it will be hidden somewhere else; he also knows there are no tools left in the armory, because they just took the inventory of it, so he takes the box and walks back to the living room. 

Danny is sitting at the small kitchen table, sorting through a stack of papers, and there’s a pile of file folders and envelopes in front of him. He looks up when Steve enters the room.

“You find anything?” Danny puts the papers down on the table and gestures at the lockbox in Steve’s hands.

“Don’t know yet, it’s locked.” Steve deposits the box on the table and looks around, searching for anything he could use to pick the lock with. “I need something—“

“Here,” Danny says before Steve can finish the sentence and holds out a Swiss Army knife, handle first. He’d obviously used it before, since the blade is already extended.

Steve stares at the knife in Danny’s hand for a moment. It’s a déjà-vu of a completely different kind. Just as unreal, but unexpectedly pleasant, bringing back memories of his childhood he’d almost forgotten about.

“This knife—“ Steve points at it without taking it from Danny yet, “does it have an inscription?”

Danny folds the blade back into the handle and takes a closer look, rubbing his thumb over the red plastic.

“Yeah, looks like there was something engraved in here,” he says, squinting, “but I can’t read it. You know what it says?” 

Danny holds out the knife again and this time Steve takes it out of his hand. The letters engraved in the handle are so worn that they’re barely there anymore, but he remembers what they said.

“ _Me ke aloha_ ,” Steve says.

“With love,” Danny translates and Steve looks up surprised. Danny gives him a pleased smile. “What? You think after nine years on the island I still don’t know the basics?”

Steve can’t help but smile back at Danny, it always catches him unprepared when Danny embraces anything Hawaiian so willingly. 

“My Dad gave the knife to Joe as a gift,” he says by way of explaining. Steve doesn’t remember the occasion, it might have been a birthday gift but more likely it was a more special event—like a promotion or having survived Hell Week or something like that.

“It seems very personal,” Danny says, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“They were close, you know,” Steve says, remembering the countless times Joe had been around, the way he had always been part of the family. He wonders if it had felt just as natural for Joe as it does for him when he spends time with Danny and the kids. 

“You mean like us?” Danny asks, pointing between him and Steve in a way that is probably meant as mocking. But the clear affection in his smile and in his eyes make Steve’s knees go a little weak, and the mere fact that Danny has come along all the way to Montana and is sitting right here sorting through Joe’s paperwork belies the gesture. 

“Yeah, kinda like us,” Steve confirms, rolling his eyes at Danny but he’s fully aware that his own smile is just as affectionately goofy as Danny’s. He’s just so incredibly grateful that Danny is here with him.

He has to admit, though, that Danny is right: it is a very personal note on the knife. He never thought anything of it when he was a kid, it is a common enough phrase in Hawaii. But having these words engraved on a gift like this, it becomes rather special. It must have meant something to Joe, too, that he had kept it all these years.

“I was there when Dad gave it to Joe.” Steve sits down at the table across from Danny, inspecting the knife, pulling out the tools one after the other, allowing himself to reminisce for a moment. 

“I remember… I was so fascinated by the knife and all these tools in it, I would ask Joe if I could look at it every time I saw him for weeks afterwards.” It’s a fond memory, and it feels good to share it with Danny.

“Oh yeah, I can picture that,” Danny says dryly, “I’m not at all surprised you turned out such a weapon’s freak.”

“You know, you’re right for once,” Steve admits, laughing a little because Danny is so easily predictable sometimes. “Because I was so fascinated with this knife, Joe gave me my own kid’s pocket knife for my seventh birthday. I’ve had it for years.” 

It had been his most sacred possession for a long time, all his friends had envied him for it, because it had been a _real_ knife and not just a toy. He’d long outgrown it and left it behind when he left for ANA, but he wonders if it’s still somewhere in his house, it’s not entirely impossible.

“That was very nice of Joe.” Danny leans back in his chair, regarding Steve with a thoughtful expression that Steve can’t quite decipher. 

“Joe always was generous with us when we were kids,” Steve says, and with a wry grin he adds, “not so much anymore after I joined the Navy, though.” 

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Danny grins back at Steve and then they are silent for a moment, both lost in thought. 

“Where did you find it?” Steve asks eventually, looking up from where he’s still fiddling with the knife.

“Found it in the beautiful old bureau over there.” Danny points across the room. “Along with these masses of paperwork,” he pats the stack of papers that’s sitting right in front of him. “Nothing interesting here, though. It’s mostly bills.”

Steve looks over at the bureau and makes a mental note to check it for hidden compartments later, even though he’s sure Danny did that already. He sits up a little in his chair and pulls the lockbox closer to inspect the lock—he’d momentarily forgotten about it, swept up in memories.

“How you gonna open it?” Danny asks and it’s a valid question. Steve doesn’t have the right tools to pick the lock, even if it doesn’t look very sophisticated or especially secure.

“Did you by chance find any keys in that old desk?” Steve asks back, even though he knows it’s a long shot. When Danny shakes his head no, he pulls out the blade of the pocket knife again and starts prodding, sticking the knife in between the box and the lid, trying to lever it open. Steve doesn’t particularly care if he damages the box, so it only takes a short moment until the lock cracks and gives to the brute force he’s applying.

He folds the blade and puts the knife down and when he lifts the lid, Danny comes around the table to take a closer look. He stands behind Steve, one hand on the back of Steve’s chair, his arm brushing lightly against Steve’s back as Danny leans over his shoulder. Steve can’t help but lean into it, just a little, Danny’s warmth offering a silent comfort.

The box pretty much contains what Steve had expected. Several rolls of cash, a set of fake passports, a collection of flash drives, a thin paper file on the bottom. Joe’s medals are there and a set of dog tags. He pulls the tags out of the box by instinct, and rubs his thumb over them. He knows what is engraved into the metal, but he turns them around to read it anyway. And frowns. 

The name he expects to read is: White, Joseph E.

What it says is: McGarrett, John M.

That’s… odd.

Why would Joe have his Dad’s dog tags? Why would he keep them locked up like this? It doesn’t make any sense. 

“What is it?” Danny asks, as Steve keeps staring at the old tags in his hand. There are thousands of possible scenarios running through Steve’s mind, one more unlikely than the other. 

“These are my Dad’s,” he says, turning slightly towards Danny, holding up the dog tags for Danny to see. Steve can see his own confusion reflected on Danny’s face when he reads the name for himself, but before either of them can speak, Danny’s phone starts to ring.

—

It’s Grace on the phone, checking in as she’d promised she would, and Danny pats Steve lightly on the shoulder and wanders off towards the back of the cabin, presumably heading to the bedroom for privacy. Ever since Grace’s accident Danny has slipped back into his old protective Dad mode where Gracie is concerned and Steve doesn’t find it in him to be offended by that. The accident had been a shock to all of them, but it had been a living nightmare for Danny especially.

Steve looks back at the dog tags he’s still holding, still puzzled how they ended up in Joe’s possession in the first place and even more by the question what they could have meant to Joe that he kept them safe and locked up in a secure place like this.

Steve gives the contents of the lockbox a closer investigation, looking for clues how the dog tags ended up here, for a possible connection to his father, but there is none to be found. The passports all show Joe’s picture, the medals are Joe’s as far as he can tell, and the file folder contains copies of several legal documents but nothing that stands out. That leaves the flash drives, but he will have to wait to check them out and it could be all kinds if intel on them. 

He sighs and starts to put everything back into the box, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach as he places the dog tags on top of everything else. He has never allowed himself to dig too deep into what kind of stuff might have been going on between Joe and John and Doris. He’s still not sure he wants to know, but between the dog tags and the knife and the photos in the bedroom, he can’t shake the feeling there was something—

_Something._

Something with very complicated feelings and self-set lines and no-goes; something that feels painfully familiar.

No, Steve shakes his head at himself. He should let go of these thoughts. There’s a truth down that road he’s not sure he’s ready to uncover and deal with yet.

He shivers involuntarily because it’s freaking cold inside the cabin. He rubs his hand together a few times in an attempt to get some warmth back into his fingers, and then rubs his hands over his upper arms. It doesn’t help much. 

Steve can hear Danny pacing in the bedroom; he’s laughing, which means he’s still on the phone. He makes a point of not listening in on Danny’s end of the conversation and instead reaches over the table for a thick letter sized envelope that Danny must have put there. Peering inside, he finds it holds several smaller envelopes and, curiosity piqued, he empties all of them out onto the table. He picks one up at random and finds photographs in it.

They seem to be an assorted collection of family photos, he recognizes a very young Joe in the first photo and he can only guess that the girl at his side is his sister, and that it’s their parents in the background. The following pictures show mostly variations of the same people, Joe and his family, all of the photos in black and white. 

After all the discoveries he’s already made today, Steve is only mildly surprised when he finds more photos of his own family mixed into the stack. A snapshot of their traditional picnic on the beach on Christmas Day, with his Dad and Joe wearing ridiculous Santa hats. A picture of his Dad holding a newborn baby Mary in his arms. A photo of Joe and himself returning from a fishing trip, and he remembers it well because it had been the first time he’d caught _‘ahi_.

Steve recognizes a lot of the photos from his Mom’s old photo albums; he and Mary had loved to look at them when they were kids. And Doris had loved her cameras. She must have made prints of the best shots for Joe. Steve can’t help but smile at the sentiment that Joe kept them over the years. 

He leafs through the whole pile, and puts it carefully back into the envelope when he’s done, immediately reaching for the next one. The stack of photos he pulls out of it is a little thicker and, as the first couple of pictures tell him, they all seem to be Navy related in some form or other. 

Some photos seem to have been taken on missions, some while on R&R. Random snapshots of groups of sailors hanging out together, at sea, on base, downrange. In some of them Steve recognizes a face or two. There are old pictures in black and white. Some with either Joe or John or both in them. Photos of an award ceremony at the White House. All testimony to Joe’s long and successful career in the Navy. Steve has got his own set of pictures, just like these.

He keeps flipping through the photos when he realizes that there are a couple of pictures towards the bottom of the stack that show just his Dad. Steve halts and looks at them more closely. They speak of good times, in most of them, John looks directly at the camera, untypically at ease. He’s laughing most times, sometimes pulling faces, in one of them he’s giving the bird to whoever took the picture. 

Steve’s smile becomes a little wistful, this is a side of his Dad he’d rarely seen and barely knew existed. But there’s a tight feeling growing in his chest, getting worse with every photo he uncovers, and it’s for a completely different reason.

There doesn’t seem to be a particular order to the photos, it’s a random collection of John McGarrett over the years, from the young man he was back when he first met Joe, to what Steve guesses is at most a year or two before before his death. 

Suddenly, he feels like he can’t breathe, he can feel tears stinging in his eyes and he closes them for a moment, because—

He’s got his own bunch of pictures like these, too… on his phone… with Danny in them.

With his eyes still closed, he takes a deep breath, not yet willing to think about… whatever this means or implies. 

When he opens his eyes again, his gaze is directed toward the window, and for a moment he can see Joe, preparing the MG they had positioned there, and his mind replays Joe saying _“Steve, don't wait. Don’t wait as long as I did to find someone. I sat out too long. I don't want that to happen to you.”_

It hits Steve like a punch to the gut.


	2. Chapter 2

_Steve, don’t wait._

Had Joe known about him? About his feelings for Danny? Had Joe been in love with his Dad? Had he looked at Steve and seen his younger self reflected there?

_Me ke aloha._

Had his Dad known? Had he loved Joe the same way? Does this all really means what Steve thinks it means? 

Steve is still sitting there at the table, frozen to the spot, but his mind is going a mile a minute. Question after question is popping up, but he has no answers. Each thought he dares think just leads to a dozen more questions.

_I sat out too long. I don't want that to happen to you._

What had Joe meant by that? What kind of regrets did he have? Had he meant that Steve should get over himself and talk to Danny? Had he meant Steve should forget about Danny and move on? Had his father broken Joe’s heart or had John’s death? 

With trembling hands Steve picks the stack of photos back up, starting to flip through them from the beginning again, searching for those pictures that show both, Joe and his dad. He looks more closely now than he did before, searching for clues, lingering gazes, covert touches, anything—

How had he never realized any of it before?

He does notice, now. Meaningful glances between them. Fond looks when it seems one thinks the other isn’t watching. Joe’s arm around John’s shoulders and John’s hand on Joe’s forearm. Always close, always side by side. So painfully familiar—

The images start to blur in front of his eyes as a fresh wave of emotions hits Steve square in the chest. Anger, because Joe had quite obviously _known_. Disappointment that Joe had withheld the truth from him, yet again. Hurt, for himself but just as much for Joe and his dad because Steve so clearly understands why this had to have been a secret—

Steve stands up abruptly, almost toppling over his chair in the process but he’s barely noticing. He heads for the door, he needs to get out of here and clear his head. He needs space and fresh air and he welcomes the biting cold as he steps onto the porch.

—

“Here you are!”

Danny’s voice makes him jolt and startles him out of his thoughts. Steve has no idea of how much time has passed, how long he’s been standing there at the corner of the porch, half a step away from where the snow has piled up on the wooden floor. He’s been too lost in thought, too bewildered by what he found, he hadn’t even heard Danny’s footsteps or him opening the door. 

“What are you doing out here?” Danny keeps talking and Steve turns around, catching Danny looking him up and down from where he’s leaning in the doorway. “It’s freezing, you’re not even wearing shoes, what’s the matter with you—” 

Danny stops short, clearly alarmed by what he has seen by looking at Steve. And when he talks again there’s concern clearly audible in his voice. “You found something? What is it?” 

“Danny…,” Steve says, almost pleading, though for what he is not sure. 

He can’t tell Danny, even though he wants to. He needs to tell Danny, badly, he needs to hear his opinion for all of it to make sense, but he’s all torn up, how can he tell Danny any of it without bringing his own feelings into it? Damn it. Steve rubs a hand over his face tiredly, trying to sort out his thoughts, but he fails to come up with an answer.

“Will you come back inside, please?” Danny takes a step onto the porch, obviously prepared to tow Steve back inside the cabin if he needs to. “Look, we should probably head back soon, the way it’s snowing now—have you even noticed?” 

Following the wave of Danny’s hand, Steve looks up and out towards the driveway, surprised to see a wall of white instead of the dark patches of trees by the old paddock. The snow is falling steadily, heavily, and no, he hadn’t even noticed. And then Danny’s hand is on his arm, tugging at him, and with a last glance at the snow flakes twirling through the air, he lets Danny pull him the few steps across the porch and back into the relative warmth of the cabin. 

Steve stands in the middle of the room, a shiver running over him and he only now realises how cold he has become. He just stands there for a moment, wavering, but his eyes are drawn back to the table and the photos scattered there—

“I think Joe might have been in love with my dad,” he blurts out, without any conscious decision to do so. 

“What?” Danny has pushed the door closed behind them and walks over to where Steve is standing, confusion written all over his face. “Why would you think that?”

“There are—“ Steve gestures at the mess he left on the table. “Photos,” he finishes lamely, but it’s all he can bring himself to say just now.

Danny takes that in for a second, and then asks “Would it be a problem for you if he had been?” His voice is perfectly calm, his tone carefully neutral, and Steve might have picked up on that if there was any processing power left free in his mind. As it is, the question hits him completely out of left field.

“What?” he says, frowning at the question—and fuck, yes, he does have a problem with it. Not in the way it implies, though, how could he? And how can Danny think that of him? But then Danny has no idea of how hypocritical that would make him, so—

“No!” Steve says, emphatically, “it’s just—“ He stops and rubs his hand over his forehead, wondering how to put into words what makes him so upset about it. “There are so many things... about my parents, right? All these things I never knew… but they’re still only fragments—”

And he’s tired, so tired. Of the random puzzle pieces of his families’ past he stumbles upon accidentally or that are thrown his way without explanation. Of guessing how they all fit together. Of guessing if he connected the pieces in the right way or if the picture he has come up with is just a distorted version of the truth. Of never knowing for sure. 

Steve doesn’t think his explanation makes much sense as he stumbles over the words, but Danny’s face softens in understanding and he reaches out to squeeze Steve’s arm in reassurance. 

“Okay. Okay, you need to tell me all this from the beginning, babe,” Danny says. He lets go of Steve’s arm and gestures towards the window. “But we need to make a plan first. It’s getting dark and the weather looks more like the beginning of a snow storm than just a flurry. You got the weather forecast for this place on your phone?“

It takes a moment for Steve to process Danny’s words, his mind still trapped in the endless cycle of one unanswered question chasing the next. But he knows he won’t come up with a satisfactory answer or explanation just like that, and certainly not within the next couple of minutes. 

He lets out a small sigh under his breath and nods, pushing all the unanswered questions aside and pulls his phone out of his pocket. 

The forecast predicts heavy snowfall and wind well into the night, it doesn’t bode well. The streets had been cleared on their way here, but it also had been obvious that it wouldn’t take much to make them impassable quickly. There’s an omnipresent danger of black ice, add freshly falling snow and gusts of wind to the mix, snowdrifts are a given and roads will be hell to navigate, especially come nightfall.

“Damn it,” Steve says at the same time as Danny says “We’re not going back in that weather!”

They look at each other, or glaring more like, caught in a silent argument—

_We’ll drive slowly and carefully_ is at the tip of Steve’s tongue, and he knows by Danny’s frown alone that it will be immediately countered with _No! It’s too unpredictable and too dangerous!_

If he goes for an argument like _I’m trained for this—_ , he knows it will be shut down by a petulant _But we don’t have to take the risk!_

The chances of winning this discussion with Danny aren’t looking very good, Steve realizes.

“Fine,” he relents, “we’ll stay.” He’s not particularly thrilled by the idea of staying in the cabin overnight, this had been meant to be just a short stopover. But the weather conditions _are_ kind of grim and if he’s honest, they’re not a challenge he’s looking forward to taking on after the emotional turmoil of the day. 

“Okay, good,” Danny says, badly concealing a triumphant grin. “That’s a sensible decision I can agree with. So, uh… what’s our plan of action?”

Steve knows that Danny knows full well what their next steps are gonna be now. It’s not as if they’re going on a weeks-long mission facing unpredictable odds, it’s just a night of sheltering from bad weather. As far as attempts at distraction go, this one is pretty transparent. 

It also works. Having something to do is much better than pondering a past he can’t change and losing himself in questions he can’t answer. 

Steve quickly pulls together a mental picture of their situation and finds it’s not too bad.

“Alright,” he says after a short moment, and starts counting out the tasks on his fingers. “First, we need to get our stuff out of the car. Second, we need to get firewood. Third, we need to check for food supplies.“

“Okay,” Danny agrees, amicably enough that it would be highly suspicious under different circumstances. “You get the firewood, I go to the car,” he then decides and grabs his boots that he left by the door earlier. 

Steve doesn’t object and puts on his own boots.

—

By the time they have the car unloaded and a decent fire going in the old oven and the cabin is heating up, it’s gone dark outside. Danny has rummaged through the kitchen cabinets in search of food and has piled the meagre contents on top of the counter: a can of baked beans and several cans of preserved fruit, a single package of boil-in-the-bag rice, several protein bars, some tea, some coffee—and an opened bottle of whiskey that’s still about two-thirds full.

It’s not much and Steve is not surprised. He’d stayed at the ranch for almost a month, but he hadn’t bothered with grocery shopping. He’d mostly lived off what Joe had left in his storage, it had been stocked well enough. He is, however, surprised that there’s any whiskey left. He’d drowned his grief in alcohol on more nights than one, decimating the booze steadily along with the food supplies—

“So, any ideas what we’re gonna do with these savoury delicacies?” Danny asks, pulling Steve out of his gloomy memories. He adds a bag of animal crackers to the hoard on the counter, he must have kept it in his backpack, Steve figures, as emergency food or something like that.

“Well,” Steve says and looks at the food, pretending to give it some serious thought. “I guess we have a choice between rice and beans or—,” he pauses for dramatic effect, “rice and beans.” It’s not great and it won’t be tasty, but it’s nutritious and Steve has eaten worse things in his life. 

“Why don’t we have rice and beans then?” Danny agrees with a suspicious lack of protest. But since it had been him who’d insisted on staying at the cabin, he doesn’t have any room to complain and he seems to know it. “As long as we have whiskey with it and fruit for dessert, I’ll be good,” he says and Steve can’t help the small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. And hell yes, Danny is right, he could do with a drink right about now.

They set to work and they don’t talk much while preparing the food, falling into practised routine easily. Steve prepares two cups of tea while they wait for the rice to cook and Danny adds a generous shot of whiskey to the tea. The alcohol helps to warm them up quickly after they spent the whole afternoon in the unheated cabin—or in Steve’s case, outside of it. But Steve can also feel how it goes straight to his bones, leaving him a little more lightheaded than it reasonably should.

He takes another sip of the spiced tea anyway as Danny pulls out plates and spoons to set the table. Steve watches as Danny makes room on the table, neatly stacking the papers he’d studied earlier and collecting the photos that Steve had left scattered around. 

It’s the small, almost domestic moments like these that are so easy between them, that feel so right, that he loves so much, that never fail to get under his skin. Steve feels a familiar ache in his chest and he quickly takes another drink of his tea to wash away the sudden urge to reach out to Danny, to touch him, to pull him into a hug. Because it would be so damn easy to take a step closer, to grab Danny’s arm, pull him over—

And then, suddenly, unbidden, there’s Joe’s voice in his mind again, telling him _Steve, don’t wait. Don’t wait as long as I did to find someone._

The pain in his chest sharpens unexpectedly and it’s in this exact moment that one of the pictures catches Danny’s attention, it’s impossible to tell which one, but Danny pauses to take a closer look—

Steve watches helplessly and bites his lip in anticipation. He should say something, he thinks, he should at least start explaining about what he said earlier. And yes, maybe Joe was right, maybe he should stop waiting, maybe he’s waited long enough. Maybe it’s time to be honest about his feelings—

His heart is beating wildly as he wonders where to start and how to put into words any of the thousand thoughts that have been whirling through his mind for the past couple of hours—but then it’s Danny who speaks up first.

“I know I’ve often called you crazy for trusting Joe the way you did, but—“ he says as he flips through the photos in his hands slowly. “I guess I never understood how much he was a part of you growing up. That he was not just part your military life, that you shared much more history than all those secrets and half-truths—“ He stops himself and looks up from the photos and straight at Steve. “I just... I’m sorry, babe.”

Steve can only stare at him in surprise. Danny rarely admits when he’s been wrong, usually he just brushes it over but an apology like this, it leaves him speechless. The thing is, Danny hadn’t even been wrong. Joe _had_ lied to him, not once, but several times. But just as much as it hurts that he never got the whole truth from him, he knows that Joe had had his reasons and that his intentions had been to protect and not to hurt. However misguided that might have been. But there had been so much at stake and Steve understands that now better than ever.

Steve has no idea how to respond, though. He clears his throat, forces out a slightly choked “Thank you,” and turns away from Danny, busying himself with checking on the rice and stirring the beans while trying to process all the emotions washing over him. Hearing these words from Danny, knowing he has thought about it, has made an effort to understand, it means so much more than he could ever have imagined.

And it’s almost as if Danny unknowingly gave him a starter into this conversation. Steve can’t tell if Danny is still looking at the photos, or if he’s watching him, but he doesn’t dare turn around either.

“You know,” he says, hesitantly, but it’s now or never. “There’s something I realised a while ago and… I wasn’t sure if I should tell you.” 

“What’s that?” Danny asks. Steve chances a brief look over his shoulder, catches Danny’s eyes for a moment and has to look away again before he speaks.

“Before Joe died, he told me… he said that I should watch over the people in my life the way he looked out for me, and I realized—“ Steve pauses, his throat suddenly dry at the memory, and he has to swallow before he can continue, “I realized I already do that. When I watched over Gracie while she was in recovery, and I had caught that asshole who did that to her only just a few hours before, I thought… I had this thought that I’m the same person for her that Joe was for me.

“I mean... the way Joe was around when I was a kid. And the way he looked out for me later? He—“ Steve looks down at the stove in front of him, at the bubbling water in the pot with the rice, trying to keep his emotions in check. “Joe got me out of an arrest once, did you know that? I was sixteen, first week at military school, I ran away. Stole a car, got pulled over— Joe was there, you know?”

He falls silent and behind him, Danny makes some sort of noise that could be a laugh or a snort, Steve’s not sure, but then he hears movement, and only a second later Danny is beside him, Danny’s hand on his arm, grounding him. It feels reassuring. Encouraging. Steve takes a deep breath.

“It’s… it’s the same thing I’d do. It’s what I already do. For Grace. And for Charlie. I like to be this person, you know? I want to be there for them. And for you.” Steve bites his tongue, sure that he’s said too much. 

But Danny just asks “Why is that something you wouldn’t tell me?”, voice soft and he tugs at Steve’s arm to make him turn around. “That’s… it’s a nice thought. And I’m grateful that you’d do that for my kids, for us. Believe me, it makes me sleep better at night to know that they have someone watching out for them… especially if that someone is you.”

“Really?” Steve finally turns to look at Danny, and the tension in his stomach slowly uncoils at the sincerity he finds on Danny’s face. Steve had half expected Danny to make a joke about it, or dismiss his musings with a flippant comment, he’s aware that this kind of talk is way out of both their comfort zones.

“Yes, really, Steve.” Danny squeezes Steve’s arm for emphasis before he lets go of it. “I’m glad you told me.” They stand there for a few moments longer in silence, the only sound coming from the bubbling water on the stove. 

“C’mon, let’s eat,” Danny says eventually and reaches over to switch off the stove. Steve nods absentmindedly but then takes the cue, taking the pot to drain the rice. He empties the bag into an empty bowl while Danny takes the beans, puts the pot on the table and starts filling their plates.

“Tell me about Joe, from when you were a kid,” Danny asks when they sit down to eat and Steve looks up surprised. That’s a request he hadn’t expected, but Danny just grins and picks up one of the photos from the stack of pictures he’d put to the side earlier and holds it up for Steve to see. It’s the one with Steve at ten years old, pleased as punch while clasping his first tuna, and Steve can’t help but grin in response. 

Yeah, it might be nice to share some of those memories. 

And suddenly, it’s easy again. 

While they eat, Steve tells Danny all about that memorable fishing trip when he caught his first a’hi. It had been a whole weekend of fishing with Joe and his Dad, it had been the first time he’d been allowed to come along and he had been so proud, feeling all grown-up. That he’d made his first catch had been the icing on the cake. 

Come to think of it, he remembers that fishing weekends between his father and Joe had happened on the regular back then—but with just a few exceptions, they had happened without Steve. Huh. He’s not sure what to make of that thought or how to feel about it, so he pushes it rigorously out of his mind for now. 

Instead, he tells Danny about all the Christmasses Joe spent with the McGarretts, how Joe had laughed his ass off when his dad had bought the piece of junk that was the Marquis to this day and about the time when Joe took Mary and him to the zoo. Mary had first run away from them, making Joe panic because he thought he’d lost her; and then she’d tricked him into buying her a huge sea turtle plushie and Joe had immediately fallen for her sad, teary eyes because he’d felt guilty. 

Steve tells Danny about that one time, not long after Top Gun had been released at the theaters, when Joe took him to Pearl-Hickam and he was allowed to set foot on an aircraft carrier for the first time in his life.

By the time they’ve finished eating, the mood has shifted into more relaxed and they’re both smiling, even though for very different reasons, probably. While Steve wallows in happy childhood memories, something he hasn’t allowed himself to do often, Danny seems genuinely amused.

So Steve keeps going, remembering a camping trip where Joe had taught him basic survival skills, like how to navigate with a compass, how to build a campfire, how to find water and how to throw a knife. He hesitates for a moment, and then decides it’ll be worth it to tell the whole story: that they had been attacked by an _actual_ boar that night, that Steve had not only learned about the necessity to kill one first hand, but also how to do it. The expressions crossing Danny’s face in rapid succession are hilarious. 

“Seriously?” Danny blurts out, and then a little louder, “Seriously? And you’re telling me this now? After what? Five years?”

“You never asked—” Steve tries to argue, but he doesn’t get far.

“You’re both the same special sort of crazy, you know that?” Danny says, and there’s a fond smile on his face. He stands up to take their empty plates to the sink, patting Steve’s shoulder lightly in passing. “And until recently, I would have sworn it was the Navy’s doing, but clearly it’s not. Seems more like you’ve got it directly from Joe.”

“You might be right about that,” Steve says and stands, too, handing the pots over to Danny. “I never really saw it before, all the parallels… how alike we were, Joe and I.” 

Danny gives him a thoughtful, almost knowing look at that, like he’s starting to connect the dots and Steve can’t quite meet his eyes. Just thinking about those parallels, about the similarity of his own position in life to Joe’s situation back then, that Joe might have felt exactly the same way, it makes Steve’s head spin once more.

—

A little while later, after they’ve cleaned up what little there was to clean up in the kitchen, they have moved to sit on the couch. It’s closer to the fire and thus warmer—if not exactly comfortable with all the holes that have been blasted into it. But there’s enough of it left intact so they can sit side by side, with a view of the fireplace and of the window with the snow still tumbling down outside.

Now that they are sitting down with nothing really left to do, Steve can feel how tired and exhausted he is. It’s been a long day that feels like it has lasted for years and the meeting with the lawyer from this morning seems like a distant memory. He’d been anxious about coming here in the first place, but even in his wildest dreams he couldn’t have come up with what the day has brought to light—

Steve flicks his gaze away from the fire and his eyes land on the stack of pictures he’s brought over from the kitchen table—and that are now waiting for further examination on the coffee table next to the bottle of whiskey. Maybe he’s got it all wrong? He shakes his head at himself, because no. He knows he’s not wrong and this kind of wishful thinking is not at all helpful.

Next to him, Danny is devouring a whole can of sliced peaches that Steve had refused to share. Just imagining the sickly sweet taste is enough to make him shudder. Instead, he drains the last remains of whiskey and tea that are left in his cup and then leans forward to refill both their cups—whiskey straight this time. 

He should probably lay off the alcohol, Steve thinks, it’s just making him more tired and more pensive and he knows from experience that it’s not a good combination. But then Danny shifts forward and switches the now empty can for his refilled cup and holds it up to make a toast.

“To Joe,” he says with sincerity. 

“To Joe,” Steve repeats.

They drink and then they are both silent for a long while, the only sounds coming from the crackling of the fire and the wind blowing outside. It would be really nice and cozy, maybe even romantic—if only the circumstances would be any different. 

As it is, Steve feels ill at ease. The mood might have shifted into more relaxed during their meal, but Steve’s words from earlier hang heavy in the air between them. 

Steve is aware that it’s on him to pick the thread of their conversation back up and he’s also aware that he's stalling. He has made his decision, Steve reminds himself, he has decided to be honest, has already started this and now he’s got to see it through. However this conversation turns out and wherever it may lead—

But before Steve can decide on what he wants to say, Danny beats him to it. Again. Danny takes another drink of whiskey, then puts his cup back down on the coffee table and reaches for the photos.

“Can I?” he asks, looking back at Steve over his shoulder. 

“Go ahead.” Steve nods and rubs his free hand over his thigh in a bout of nerves. 

Danny picks up the small pack and leans back on the couch, holding the pictures so that Steve can see them, too.

“What am I looking for?” he asks as he starts flipping through them slowly. 

“Just… take a look. Tell me if there’s something you notice. Tell me—“ Steve stops short. It doesn’t make much sense to hold things back at this point. Danny knows him, knows everything about him, knows him best of all. Danny has been there for every painful discovery he made about his family in the past ten years, and he’s never left his side during any of it. Steve is pretty sure he won’t leave now.

“Tell me I’m not crazy for thinking what I’m thinking,” he finishes the sentence around the growing lump in his throat. “Please.”

Because what he is struggling with is that this is not just about Joe or his family or himself. If this is going the way Steve thinks it will, then it will also be about _him and Danny_ and for all that they have been through together, he has no idea how Danny might react to that and it scares him like nothing ever has before.

Danny reaches out and lays his hand on top of Steve’s, holding it still for a moment and squeezing it before letting go again, and Steve only now realizes he’d been fiddling with the zipper of his cargo pocket the whole time.

Danny resumes browsing through the pictures, asking occasionally about the persons in them or a timeframe for reference. The images are all mixed up by now, not that there had been much of an order to begin with and looking at them again now, Steve can’t not see what these photos have meant to Joe. Suddenly, the ache in his chest from before is back with a vengeance.

“I’d never have thought Joe was the sentimental type,” Danny comments after a while, “keeping all these family pictures. It’s… nice.” 

“He was a good man,” Steve agrees and then finishes his whiskey in one big gulp, the awareness that Joe really is _gone_ suddenly sneaking up on him like it sometimes does. It still hurts every time.

“He, uh… he’s got a lot of pictures of your dad…,” Danny looks up at Steve, comprehension dawning in his eyes. He thumbs through the last couple of pictures again, rearranging as he goes, until he’s got several photos of John McGarrett in his hand, holding them like a set of cards and showing them to Steve. “Is that it? That why you think he was in love with him?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Steve nods and has to look away from Danny’s questioning gaze. He starts picking at the zip of his pocket again instead.

“Don’t you think you might be jumping to conclusions here? It could—”

“No, it’s not random,” Steve quickly interrupts. While a huge part of him is relieved that Danny caught on, that he saw it, too, a much bigger part of him is terrified. 

That he still needs to explain. 

That Danny doesn’t quite believe it. 

That Danny will keep asking questions. 

That Steve will have to spell it all out.

“Look…,” he starts, hesitantly. “You call me emotionally constipated, and maybe you’re right. But Joe and my dad… they were even worse. That’s why this,” he points at the pictures Danny is still holding, “is pretty telling to me. The dog tags Joe kept even more. Those things have meaning. You don’t just keep your buddie’s tags for no reason.”

Danny keeps quiet as he thinks it over. It’s unsettling. 

“But it could be any reason,” he finally says. “Joe’s been involved in so much crazy shit, seriously. How would you know?”

Steve closes his eyes for a short moment and bites his lip, wondering why Danny makes it so hard for him—or if he really hasn’t caught on yet. 

“I know because…,” he starts and then can’t bring himself to say it, finding it kind of hard to breathe all of a sudden. This is the exact situation he’d been dreading for the past couple of hours, the moment he’d known would be coming, inevitably, after he’d found the photos and—

“I know how he felt. Okay? I know—” he forces the words out and it leaves him breathless, makes him feel lightheaded from lack of air and nerves and probably the whiskey, too. But he keeps going, he’s not a coward and he’s sure as hell not lacking the will power to see things through to the end. “I know because I’m in the same situation he was in, because… I feel the same way. And if you take my phone and look at the camera roll, you’ll find the same kind of pictures there—“

He dares a quick look at Danny, sees confusion and something he can’t at all decipher. 

“I think Joe was in love with my dad the same way I’m in love with you, Danny,” Steve says and it’s out now. 

It has taken all his courage and Danny sits across from him, wide-eyed and completely silent, and if there’s anything that really, really scares Steve, it’s a silent Danny and god, he’s fucked it up. He’s gone and ruined it. Destroyed it. The one good thing in his life, the one friendship he values more than anything.

He can’t stand it. He closes his eyes, dreading Danny’s reaction, what he will see on Danny’s face once the words have sunk in. Steve leans his head back against the sofa, bracing himself for the blow that will inevitably come, whether it’s verbally or physically, he’s sure it will shatter him to pieces—

But then there’s a soft touch on his face instead, that makes him shiver. Danny’s hand is cupping his cheek, his thumb wiping away a wet trail on Steve’s skin ever so gently, and he hadn’t even noticed—

“Steve,” Danny says, voice hoarse and unexpectedly soft and then Steve is pulled forward into a hug, Danny’s arms wrap around his shoulders tightly, squeezing hard. “Oh, babe!” Danny whispers, rocking them slightly back and forth, but he’s not letting go and Steve crumbles. He melts into Danny’s warmth, takes a shuddering breath and damn it, he’s as good as crying, he can’t help it.

—

It’s later, much later, and Steve isn’t quite sure how or when they have moved from the couch and into the bedroom. They’d sat on the couch for a long time, watched the fire slowly burning down and finished off the bottle of whiskey. Steve had been curled into Danny’s side, they hadn’t really spoken much after Steve’s confession of feelings, but Danny’s arm had stayed comfortingly around Steve’s shoulders the whole time.

Now, they are lying next to each other in the old, narrow bed, which is much too small for two grown men, and it should probably be awkward, especially after everything that happened, but it’s not. Danny is still there, still at his side, still taking care of him and Steve is dizzy with relief—and maybe too much whiskey. 

A tiny part of his mind is worried that Danny hasn’t really acknowledged what Steve had confided, that Danny hasn’t answered, one way or another. But he can feel Danny warm and solid next to him under the heap of blankets and right now, it’s enough. 

He’s about to drift off to sleep when Danny starts moving beside him, tugging and shoving at the blankets for a moment, searching for Steve’s hand with his own. And when he’s found it, he intertwines their fingers, his thumb stroking lightly over the back of Steve’s hand and Steve’s heart skips a beat.

“I love you too, you know,” Danny says into the dark, his voice so low it’s almost a whisper, and he specifies, “in that same way.”

Not trusting himself to speak, Steve squeezes Danny’s hand tightly in response and holds on to it, worn out but happy and feeling more hopeful than he has in a long while. And then there’s one thought in his mind before he finally falls asleep: _I stopped waiting, Joe. I didn’t sit it out, I’ve found my someone._

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I don’t speak Hawaiian. According to Google Translator “Me Ke Aloha” is used as a greeting/salutation and it’s translated with “Kind Regards”. But it also translates to “With Love”, and I think it would be perfect as an inscription on a gift from John to Joe. Because it’s generic enough to not cause suspicion, but at the same time it holds a completely different, personal meaning. If this assumption on my part is wrong, please let me know!  
> 2\. This just for the record, because why is canon so inconsistent when it comes to important things, but unexpectedly detailed about things that are just barely relevant? When I started writing this, I freely assumed that Joe White and John McGarrett were roughly the same age. I didn’t even bother to check. By chance I found out later that we were indeed given birth dates for both: Joe was born on July 9 1954 and John on March 15 1942, which makes for a pretty huge age difference of twelve years, wow.
> 
> —
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I'm also on tumblr: [stephmcx](http://stephmcx.tumblr.com).  
> Come say hi, if you like!


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